'These are not political issues but, rather, issues of women’s health,' said Cecile Richards. |
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Pence, and other supporters of eliminating funding for the group, have argued that cutting off support for women’s health clinics would reduce the ability of those clinics to perform abortions.

“What’s clear to me, if you follow the money, you can actually take the funding supports out of abortion. We then have a much better opportunity to move forward to be a society that says yes to life,” Pence recently told POLITICO.

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The survey suggests, though, that Americans don’t automatically identify a fight over the group’s funding with abortions. It found that, for instance, 64 percent of voters oppose efforts to bar funding for the organization’s screenings for breast cancer.

“Senators who want to stay on the good side of their constituents back at home will oppose the efforts being made to take away Planned Parenthood’s funding or else suffer electoral consequences further down the line,” Jensen wrote.

The poll suggests that Planned Parenthood’s brand, and its health services, are far more popular than abortions, which most Americans — the plurality of whom now describe themselves as “pro-life” — believe should be legal only in some cases, though only a small minority supports a total ban, according to Gallup.

Richards argues that the criticism of the group is galvanizing a women’s movement that has largely slumbered as attempts to outlaw abortion — let alone contraception — appeared to fade into irrelevance.

“They’ve personalized this for women and for young people, and it has created an enormous wave of activity,” Richards said of the House GOP’s vote, which she said has spiked its fundraising and prompted 600,000 women to contact the organization online, 400,000 of them for the first time. Many of them had received routine services at Planned Parenthood clinics.

Cutting funding “is unthinkable to them,” she said. “Women have just risen to our defense in an incredible way.”

Planned Parenthood isn’t the only group seeing new energy. Other reproductive health groups also say the action in the House has galvanized their base. NARAL Pro-Choice America President Nancy Keenan’s e-mail activist network has grown by about 1,000 people every day, she told reporters on a call Wednesday. “It is awakening a sleeping giant,” Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.) said on the same call. “I’ve seen an upsurge in e-mails from young women, both those I know personally and those I represent, that I’ve not seen before.”

Marjorie Dannenfelser, president of the anti-abortion group Susan B. Anthony List, which has campaigned for cutting federal funds to Planned Parenthood, charged that the group’s efforts to buff its brand stem from damage done to its image by a guerrilla filmmaker whose videos of low-level Planned Parenthood workers appearing to turn a blind eye to underage prostitution led to the workers’ firing.

“It’s become clearer that they have a business model that supports the exploitation of women,” she said. “They should be concerned about their brand.”

Richards said that the videos were “insidious” and that while her group — which waged an aggressive campaign to discredit the videos — was handicapped by patient confidentiality requirements, it had reported the fake prostitution incidents to the FBI.

The battleground over Pence’s bill is now the Senate, where Democrats who support the right to an abortion appear likely to block the legislation. The polling was conducted in the states of senators Planned Parenthood views as key — Alaska, Arkansas, Illinois, Maine, Massachusetts, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Pennsylvania and West Virginia — and that include Republicans like Brown, Maine’s Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins and Illinois freshman Mark Kirk.

“Mark Kirk has been a friend of Planned Parenthood for many many years,” Richards said.

Readers' Comments (113)

Abortion is the scourge of this nation. Over 50 million babies, potential lives,have been lost since Roe v Wade. Nearly 50 million women have been lied to, deceived, and burdened by the idea that they have destroyed a human life via an abortion. They might have thought it was helping them get rid of the "problem" of pregnancy. That is about 50 million childless couples that have gone without children.

Planned Parenthood is an insidious organization. The hidden camera on the worker in NJ is a perfect example and we can be sure that she is not the only one with this inclination or direction.

Funding is also done through deception, calling Planned Parenthood services "women's healthcare." These people are about as concerned with women's healthcare as the teachers' unions are concerned with school children's education.

Do we have a shortage of "single mothers"? How many thousands of children don't even know who their father is?

In 2009, 41% of children born in the USA were born to unmarried mothers (up from 5% a half-century ago). That includes 73% of non-Hispanic black children, 53% of Hispanic children and 29% of non-Hispanic white children. Those are not misprints.

Well you so called conservative keep attacking the very programs that allow woman to keep and care for their children. Lets see how many more abortions are performed because a young single mother can't get help to feed and raise the child. YOU so called conservative will be directly to blame for your nonsense of supporting repubilcans who avocate cutting programs for woman instead of subsidies for oil, pharmacutical, health industries and NASCAR. You prolifers have ruined any oportunity for a woman to make the choice of life she will now be forced to chose the abortion. THANKS ALOT.

Planned Parenthood is an organization started by Margaret Sanger with the express mission of aborting the children of blacks and other racial minorities in order to "purify" the nation. Sanger is on record addressing the KKK expressing just these sentiments. Today's Planned Parenthood tries to disguise its shameful past by trying to color racist eugenics as "women's health". No one who knows their history is buying it. They are a racist organization.

Defund planned parenthood. Let them make up the difference by soliciting donations from all the rich celebs and soros and any other leftie. Let them feel the responsibility for aborting our unborn. As for me, I don't want any of my tax dollars thrown into that trash can.

Anyway, when obamacare kicks in and everybody is "insured" why will we need planned parenthood?

And as for margaret sanger and her eugenic, kill the minority baby mentality - typical icon for the dummycrats.

Well you so called conservative keep attacking the very programs that allow woman to keep and care for their children. Lets see how many more abortions are performed because a young single mother can't get help to feed and raise the child. YOU so called conservative will be directly to blame for your nonsense of supporting repubilcans who avocate cutting programs for woman instead of subsidies for oil, pharmacutical, health industries and NASCAR. You prolifers have ruined any oportunity for a woman to make the choice of life she will now be forced to chose the abortion. THANKS ALOT.

Micki, take a step back and take a deep breath. If you were willing to listen to the other side of the argument, you would see that there is a very easy solution. All Planned Parenthood would need to do is operate the abortion side of their program under a different non-profit name. This side could be operated by private funding while Planned Parenthood could continue to provide the other essential services and receive public funding. Does that sound unreasonable? The problem is, no one is actually looking for a solution because I think both sides are masking their true motives.

Planned Parenthood should be defunded. Why should those of us who understand that life begins at conception have to pay for other women's abortions? Most abortions are done for convenience not out of medical necessity. Our tax money should NEVER go to kill innocent babies. Planned Parenthood can get their funding from like-minded people not the tax payers.

If the issue is that important to the leaders of this group, let the local PP shops stop breaking the law and start fundraising to make up the funds about to be lost. Abortion is the PP's product, so go and market it and raise the money you need to operate ( pardon the pun).